Often times, through handicap or infirmity, a person is unable to perform simple motor tasks which others can easily do, or he himself was able to do before his physical condition became altered. Such physical alterations include the stiffening and impaired movement of the joints accompanying arthritis, diseases or conditions of the muscles, bones, tendons, or nerves which limit mobility, especially in the hands, and problems relating to the back or hips which impede one's ability to stoop or bend over. Such conditions occur in conjunction with or as a result of accident, illness, injury, a congenital condition or the so-called aging process.
At any rate, a person so impaired has many occasions daily to be frustrated by his inability to perform simple tasks, for example, picking up a dropped glove or other personal article, or gathering the morning paper, or picking up refuse along one's walk and depositing it in a waste can.
Being able to do such simple jobs for oneself rather than being helpless or having to always call on another individual, adds considerably to one's independence, self-esteem and indeed, happiness.
To date, the canes with extensible finger assemblies which have been developed, while easily operable by a physically normal person, could prove difficult for persons of limited flexibility and strength.
In addition, other cane apparatuses have no means of reliably locking the gripping fingers around an object. Thus, objects, especially weightier ones, are apt to drop from the cane as it is raised up.
The shortcomings of prior art canes with extending fingers is exemplified in the disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 3,093,402. In this patent, the user is required to depress a spring through a thumb button in order to extend the fingers as they are biased in a retracted position. The user must hold the thumb button down until an object is positioned between the gripping fingers, which is very fatiguing. Also, in this patent the expansive strength of the thumb button spring as the thumb button is released is what retracts the fingers and thusly, keeps them clamped around the object. Therefore, a spring which could be easily depressed by an impaired person would have only enough expansive strength to hold relatively light objects.
Further limitations of prior art canes are exemplified in U.S. Pat. No. 3,763,872. This invention employs a telescoping post within the cane from which gripping fingers are biased outwardly. Manual pressure on the cane causes the post to telescope into the cane and draw the fingers inwardly toward the post and around the object. It is only the frictional engagement between the post and fingers and the cane tube that maintains their relative position as the cane is lifted. It can be seen that any significant weight, exerting a downward force, will pull the telescoping tube out of the cane and cause the object to fall, depending on how much pressure was exerted on the cane pursuant to retrieving the object.